The federal budget deficit was $1.9 trillion in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2024, the Congressional Budget Office estimates—$373 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year. Revenues were $420 billion (or 11 percent) higher and outlays were $793 billion (or 14 percent) higher from October through August than they were during the same period in fiscal year 2023.

Shifts in the timing of certain payments affect that comparison. Outlays in the first 11 months of each fiscal year were reduced by shifts of some payments to September that otherwise would have been due on October 1, which fell on a weekend in both years. September 1, 2024, also fell on a Sunday, so outlays in the first 11 months of 2024 were boosted by the shifting of payments into August 2024. If not for those timing shifts, the deficit so far in fiscal year 2024 would have been $302 billion larger than the shortfall for the same period in fiscal year 2023.

In its most recent budget projections, which were published in June, CBO projected a federal budget deficit of $1.9 trillion for fiscal year 2024. It appears that the deficit will be close to that amount. If adjusted to exclude the effects of shifts in the timing of certain payments, the projected 2024 deficit would come to about $2.0 trillion.

Last year’s deficit of $1.7 trillion would have been larger if not for the recording of certain budgetary effects related to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a plan the Administration announced in 2022 to cancel many borrowers’ outstanding student loans. If those effects, and the effects of timing shifts, were excluded for fiscal year 2023, the deficit for that year would have been $2.0 trillion instead of $1.7 trillion. Thus, without the savings related to the unwinding of the proposed debt cancellation (and excluding the effects of timing shifts), CBO estimates that the federal deficit will be about the same in 2024 as it was in 2023.